(1999) Director Findlay Bunting's 70-minute documentary of Canadian singer/songwriter and guitarist Robbie Robertson ("Indians don't even believe in this kind of thing") left me, as often happens when listening to the lyrics of Robertson's songs, both fascinated and mystified.

Born in 1943 to a Mohawk mother, with relations on the Six Nations Reservation in Ontario, and a Jewish father (of whom the film makes no mention - though Robbie's features remind me of the actor Dale Robertson, the musician took the surname of his stepfather following his mother's remarriage), Robbie appeared in San Francisco when only 15 (why did he leave home?) to become a member of Ronnie Hawkins's backup band, The Hawks.

In New Orleans 40 years later, Robbie talks about a shivery guitar lick he learned and the rhythms he heard from the Mississippi Delta where the sound and the feel mattered most: "a little of this and a little of that" mixed together created a new gumbo called rock'n'roll. Of this music Willie Dixon said that "blues are the roots" while elsewhere they became the fruits.

Composing songs for the Hawk, Robbie traveled with his wild-man mentor to New York City who introduced him to songwriters in Tin Pan Alley (just as songwriters were becoming interpreters of their own words and music). Cherrypicked from other groups, the acoustic Hawks (Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson) in the mid-60s, answered a call from Bob Dylan, eventually leaving Hawkins (who didn't think someone who sang worse than he did would last) to adapt folk music to electric instruments.

Robbie (known as Mister Cool) says that with Dylan in the places they played they were regularly booed, resulting in Helm's departure until they were vindicated and moved up to Woodstock following Dylan's motorcycle accident. There inside the clubhouse of Big Pink, away from intrusions they created The Basement Tapes (thinking, "nobody will ever hear this").

Wed in 1967 to Dominique (still married) and father to the first of their three children, Robbie composed many of the songs - including "The Weight" (which became a tune on the Easy Rider soundtrack, enigmatically under the influence of Dylan's John Wesley Harding album), "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Up on Cripple Creek" - preceding The Band's debut at Bill Graham's Winterland Arena in San Francisco. They also performed at the Woodstock Festival.

After 16 years together with his band mates, Robbie says, enumerating the many artists (from Buddy Holly to Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix) who had died along the way: "I lost my passion for the road." Clips from The Last Waltz (which Robbie produced) appear throughout.

Moving in with filmmaker Martin Scorsese (for whom music suggested the image) after Dominique had kicked him out just following Marty's wife's departure, the resourceful Robertson collaborated on movies, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, and The Color of Money, creating background music, producing source music, assembling tunes, or composing the score.

Inducted as a member of The Band into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 by Eric Clapton (who says he left Cream wanting to be a member of The Band because of their integrity and craft and visited with them at Woodstock), Robbie, the man of music and movies, has continued working on cinematic projects and performing as a solo recording artist and leader of The Red Road Ensemble, which included Rita and Priscilla Coolidge. Songs other than with The Band include "Go Back to Your Woods," "What About Now," "Ghost Dance," and "Sign of the Rainbow."

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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